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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27148372">America, Untitled</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeanRH/pseuds/DeanRH'>DeanRH</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 22:17:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>11,122</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27148372</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeanRH/pseuds/DeanRH</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Stories from the road.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Castiel/Dean Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Thoughts</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dean looked out into the motor court and sighed.</p><p>He stirred his cup of black coffee even though there was nothing there to stir.</p><p>People came and went, visitors from another world who didn't live in the liminal spaces of America where he had made himself a home until no home he made felt like it.</p><p>He wondered what it was like, that other life. Going home to friends, maybe kids. Parents and grandparents around the Thanksgiving table. </p><p>He wondered what it was about him that made him stubborn about accepting his life as a half-ghost outside of society. The family he kept trying to make fractured, pieces of it dying or leaving all the time. The home he had tried to create was like an alien's, one who had heard of the concept of <em>home </em>but just couldn't get it right.</p><p>Maybe it was the bunker. That windowless underground fortress was more like a lair than anything else.</p><p>He wondered if they were the heroes or the villains.</p><p>If he built a big, beautiful house on a hill -</p><p>one with large windows, so he didn't feel suffocated, waking from nightmares where he had been buried alive again, the ones he always seemed to have in the bunker -</p><p>it would have warm, bright, welcoming wood,</p><p>big open rooms with high ceilings, like he had invited the outdoors indoors.</p><p>Maybe then, they would stay.</p><p>But in his heart of hearts, he knew it had nothing to do with the bunker or the house they used or whether the Impala and the liminal spaces of motels and the American road were the place they called home.</p><p>He frowned.</p><p>Maybe, just maybe, it was because of <em>Dean. </em></p><p><em>Everybody leaves you, Dean, you ever noticed? </em>he heard his mom's voice in his head.</p><p>She'd turned out to be a real peach.</p><p>But she was his mom, and he lost her again.</p><p>People just seemed to slip through his fingers like sand.</p><p>And Sam was right -</p><p>he hated to be alone. He was afraid to be alone.</p><p>And he was some kind of broken, half-human thing, not <em>normal </em>like everyone else, the road still called to him. He couldn't sleep thinking about the people out there he wasn't saving. </p><p>But it wasn't always about that, about honor.</p><p>It was just <em>the road, </em>and freedom. </p><p>He wished he could be like other people. It would be easier.</p><p>But he fit in the liminal spaces like he belonged there and he was beginning to think that he did, in fact, belong there.</p><p>Maybe that wasn't such a bad thing. </p><p>But he was also beginning to realize that what he wanted was to drift -</p><p>but not to drift alone.</p><p>"And who's gonna live like that, with me?" he muttered, pouring the rest of the acrid gas station coffee down his throat and tossing the styrofoam cup into the trash with a little laugh in the back of his throat.</p><p>In the shadows behind him, Castiel watched with cool blue eyes, but did not make his presence known.</p><p>***</p><p>The world was changing, and in Dean's opinion, not really for the better.</p><p>Oh, sure, the gas stations had improved a lot since he and Sam had been hunting. Once upon a time, there was nothing much to choose from and he had to get creative. He'd read books about proper nutrition for kids back when he <em>was </em>a kid and he made sure Sam got the right distribution of three squares.</p><p>The thing was, his love of pie wasn't exactly pretended. It was because he gave Sam all the good food and the leftover money could only buy him so much. Pie slices were cheap, available everywhere, and kept the hunger at bay long enough to get him from point A to point B on the road. As a consequence, Sam had grown up taller and (though he hated to admit it) stronger than Dean. And Dean had gone from stomaching pie to wanting to have it all the time because he had trained himself to eat it, creating a perverse kind of love out of starvation.</p><p><em>Pie </em>meant they had enough extra money for Dean to eat. <em>Pie </em>meant money enough for luxury.</p><p>He remembered the first time he'd ever seen Starbucks fancy-coffee. He considered the type of people who could afford things like that to be very rich. Sometimes, when he and Sam had a winning streak, he would buy himself whatever concoction was popular at the time because it made him feel wealthy.</p><p>He had nursed a love of pumpkin spice lattes ever since they first appeared, which he hid from Sam because he'd never hear the end of it.</p><p>So Dean loved some new things.</p><p>Others, not so much.</p><p>People were too easy to find these days. Gone was the era of leaving hookups behind in random towns across the nation. Now, everyone had social media and cell phones. Not that he didn't have cell phones himself but they were burners. He couldn't imagine being available every hour of every day for contact. Still, nobody was left in the past anymore. They just searched other people out, so that random girlfriend from twenty years ago could pop up in your life again and create havoc.</p><p>Dean did not participate in social media. But that didn't seem to hide him from the world, and he thought it was only a matter of time before people figured out that monsters were real. Maybe start experimenting on them, because people were sick.</p><p>Not that constantly murdering them was the best plan either, given that they were also <em>people, </em>and this was a lesson he and his brother seemed to learn over and over again but it never stuck.</p><p>Dean pushed open yet another glass door of yet another gas station, entering its welcoming, bright warmth from the cold of the autumn-nearly-winter outside with a sense of relief.</p><p>Living on the road meant living inside your own head for too long.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. California</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In California, Dean stared up at the redheaded man groaning above him.</p><p>Stocky in a way that almost ran to fat, the guy was a surfer who'd lost his four front upper teeth in an accident. Dean knew the shit he talked out there, saying he used to date models before the accident, and now look what he was stuck with (meaning that Dean was no prize). In private, the guy babbled about how much he was in love with Dean.</p><p>He watched with detachment as the man moved above him, scratchy red chest hair and pale skin. Dean noted all these things as the man fucked him into the mattress. Badly.</p><p>Dean didn't feel a thing. Wasn't sure why he did this anymore, here in a shitty rundown motel in a nondescript part of LA near the beach, where he was fairly certain the rust-red carpeting was there to disguise all the roaches.</p><p>The guy on top of him stopped moving and slumped over him, his body a dead weight.</p><p>Guy was still hard, and he hadn't come yet. Dean wrinkled his nose when he realized that the guy had passed out while still inside him.</p><p>With a little grunt of disgust, Dean rolled the guy off him and to the side.</p><p>He hadn't really been enjoying things, anyway.</p><p>He switched off the light, and lay there for a while, staring at the lights of the motel sign through the blinds.</p><p>As the redhead snored, Dean swung his legs over the edge of the bed in the darkness. He lit a cigarette and watched as the mess of roaches trundled across the floor together, doing roach things, having a roach conference, who knew what mattered to cockroaches? </p><p>One, he'd have killed. But by this point, the place was owned by the things.</p><p>So he just placidly watched, and wondered about cockroach politics, lifestyles, if they fell in love. Why they were so feared and hated by people for being disgusting, why he himself was so disgusted by them. </p><p>He didn't feel particularly elevated above cockroach at the moment, anyway.</p><p>He put out the cigarette in the ashtray.</p><p>Dean did not notice the man on the other side of the room, tan trenchcoat illuminated by the stripes of light from the motel sign through the Venetian blinds.</p><p>In the morning, Dean was alone.</p><p>His glass on the bedside table held a dead cockroach floating suspended in the water.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Outside of Chicago</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dean woke, soft and slow. Muzzy.</p>
<p>Not normal for him. Usually he was a zero-to-sixty wakeup if something had startled him out of sleep. It came with the job.</p>
<p>Back in the Midwest again, he was in some motel outside of Chicago that had gone to the effort of a fresh lick of paint and some Ikea furniture with a new nightly pricetag to match. He'd decided to splurge this time.</p>
<p>Someone was petting his hair.</p>
<p>He blinked up in the darkness. He couldn't remember his last hookup or even if he'd had a hookup. </p>
<p>Not that he was surprised. He got drunk a lot, and drunk enough that there were names and faces he didn't really remember, they all sort of flowed together in the fog of the past.</p>
<p>And, he assumed, so was he. Forgotten, if not hated. Loved rarely, but he could say the same for them.</p>
<p>The strange thing was how overwhelmingly <em>safe </em>he felt.</p>
<p><em>Like home, </em>a place Dean Winchester had never known except in stories. Not really.</p>
<p>Then he recognized who was combing their fingers gently through his hair.</p>
<p>"Cas?" he muttered.</p>
<p>The hand in his hair froze.</p>
<p>"My - my apologies, Dean," stammered Castiel. "I just - I thought -"</p>
<p>Dean wasn't sure why he did it, but maybe -</p>
<p>he'd had enough of the other kind of life.</p>
<p>"Stay," said Dean, catching the sleeve of Castiel's trenchcoat. "S'okay, Cas. Please stay."</p>
<p>He gave the angel a wide-eyed look that he knew must be vulnerable as hell.</p>
<p>But then Castiel relaxed. His hand returned to Dean's hair, and Dean put his head in Castiel's lap.</p>
<p>He looked out the window at the stars outside, the frost on the edges of the windowpane.</p>
<p>Castiel kept out the cold.</p>
<p>"Dean, where's Sam?" he asked.</p>
<p>"Can we - can we not talk about - please, Cas," Dean murmured. "I just wanna - please."</p>
<p>"All right," said Castiel, and continued to pet his hair.</p>
<p>Dean could trust him. To the end of the world. </p>
<p>After all, they had been there together. Plenty of times.</p>
<p>Best of all -</p>
<p>Castiel stayed.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>In the morning, Dean was alone again.</p>
<p>This time, hot coffee and some powdered doughnuts sat on a mercifully cockroach-free nightstand. The place was almost pleasant.</p>
<p>
  <em>Dean - I was called away on urgent business, I couldn't stay this morning. Please enjoy the food, I will see you again soon.</em>
</p>
<p>Dean woke up, humming to himself, and couldn't believe how delicious the coffee and the doughnuts were. He wondered if Cas had gone to some place that was famous for them, some bakery in France and a coffeeshop in New York or something.</p>
<p>He wasn't quite ready to admit that it may not be the message, but the messenger, that made things taste wonderful that morning.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. The Ocean</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He wasn't sure what the cryptic message from Castiel had meant.</p>
<p><em>Meet me here, </em>it had said, and then the name of a hotel.</p>
<p>Dean stared at the address. That's right, a <em>hotel. </em></p>
<p>Sounded kinda classy.</p>
<p>He checked in; it was the nicest place he'd ever stayed.</p>
<p>The room was huge, and mostly glass, with a balcony overlooking a beach.</p>
<p>He watched the breakers roll in and shook his head, wondering what kind of people got to live a life like this one.</p>
<p>"Dean."</p>
<p>Dean turned to see Castiel standing in the middle of the room, looking a little out-of-place. Or maybe not - the whole rumpled businessman in a beautiful hotel, thing, was making Dean feel a little like a prostitute waiting for -</p>
<p>He felt the blush on his cheeks and hoped Castiel didn't see it.</p>
<p>"So, what's going on here?" asked Dean. "You sounded pretty urgent on the phone."</p>
<p>"It is urgent," Castiel nodded. </p>
<p>"Haunted hotel?" Dean guessed. "Some kind of possession?"</p>
<p>"Nothing like that," said Castiel.</p>
<p>"Well, then what's the emergency?" Dean asked, exasperated. "Don't play Twenty Questions with me after all that cryptic bullshit on the phone."</p>
<p>Castiel strode toward him and looked as if he was going to smite him.</p>
<p>All Dean could think about was how the blue in his eyes matched the sea.</p>
<p>"Cas, wait - " he started to say, and suddenly Castiel was kissing him, and Dean made a tiny sound against his lips.</p>
<p>The last thing he had expected was an armful of angel.</p>
<p>"Hush, beloved," Castiel murmured against his mouth. "Let me take care of you."</p>
<p>Dean melted, all fight gone out of him, and he succumbed.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>The relief and joy that had flooded his system was short-lived. His hunter instincts had kicked in.</p>
<p>"Cas," he said, disentangling himself from the angel. "Cas,  you're not yourself. I think you're possessed."</p>
<p>Cas gave him an extremely bewildered look.</p>
<p>"What?" he ground out, and hearing that sex-growl voice another octave lower made it very difficult for Dean to concentrate.</p>
<p>"I mean," Dean said, waving a hand at the beautiful view and at Castiel, "this can't be real! I gotta test you, okay? Silver knife, all that."</p>
<p>He sat down on the edge of the bed, rummaging through his duffel.</p>
<p>"Why can't this be real?" Castiel asked, looking a little hurt and kiss-bitten, which was no help at all.</p>
<p>"Or a siren?" muttered Dean. "A shapeshifter."</p>
<p>"Dean!"</p>
<p>Dean's head snapped up to see the blue light of Castiel's grace behind his eyes.</p>
<p>"I assure you, it's me."</p>
<p>Dean shook his head, obstinate.</p>
<p>"Can't be."</p>
<p>"You are infuriating," grumbled Castiel. "Why not?"</p>
<p>"Because - because I don't get to have - this!" said Dean, despondent. "A - beautiful place - and - and you."</p>
<p>"You think you can't have me?" asked Castiel, approaching Dean again.</p>
<p>He took Dean's chin in his hand and tilted it upwards.</p>
<p>"Dean Winchester, you ass," said Castiel, "you've <em>always </em>had me."</p>
<p>"Wh - but I - "</p>
<p>"I am your guardian angel," Castiel continued, "and I felt that you needed a rest. A vacation."</p>
<p>Dean stared at him.</p>
<p>"You made me come all this way on an emergency call," said Dean slowly, "for a <em>vacation</em>."</p>
<p>"I'd say it was an emergency. Yes."</p>
<p>"And also some angel R&amp;R," said Dean.</p>
<p>Now it was Castiel's turn to look embarrassed.</p>
<p>"That might have been wishful thinking on my part," he admitted. "But I want to make you feel good, Dean. You <em>deserve </em>to feel good. You deserve the world."</p>
<p>Castiel leaned down and captured Dean's lips in a chaste kiss.</p>
<p>God, how badly Dean wanted to believe.</p>
<p>How badly Dean just <em>wanted.</em></p>
<p>He decided to throw caution to the wind. After all, he'd had hookups from here to Boston and back again, crisscrossing the country. Couldn't hurt to let the angel do a little exploration.</p>
<p>You know. As a favor.</p>
<p>Didn't have to mean a thing.</p>
<p>So, he went with it. He let go of the handle of the duffel bag and returned the kiss, to Castiel's delight.</p>
<p>Then, the angel pushed him down onto the bed, and kissed him senseless.</p>
<p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Gentle Touch</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dean was so hard he was aching.</p>
<p>Castiel kissed him with reverence, in the little patches of sunlight from the window, dappling his skin.</p>
<p>"Beautiful," he sighed against Dean's heated skin. "So beautiful, did you know that? Beloved."</p>
<p>"Knock it off, Cas," said Dean, his hand over his face, overwhelmed. "C'mon."</p>
<p>"But you <em>are</em>," insisted the angel, his mouth latching around a nipple as Dean sighed.</p>
<p>He kissed every freckle, and when Cas looked up at him with that warm golden sunlight in his blue eyes, Dean drew a shuddering breath and felt his eyes sting as the tears began to fall, sliding down the side of his head into his hair and once they started he couldn't seem to stop them.</p>
<p>"Don't be afraid, Dean," Castiel soothed, kissing away the tears. "I'm here. I'm here, and I'm never leaving. <em>Ever.  </em>Do you understand me, beloved?"</p>
<p>
  <em>Beloved. Beloved. Beloved.</em>
</p>
<p>The strange, old-fashioned word echoed softly through Dean's mind. It made him weep, and reach out for Castiel, the angel who saved him, the angel who would always catch him when he fell, the angel who fell for him.</p>
<p>In every way imaginable.</p>
<p>Now the tears were flowing freely and Dean was sobbing and hard and euphoric, spun out of control in a completely new way, this man who thought he had seen and done everything.</p>
<p>"Golden," whispered Castiel. "All the treasures of heaven are here, Dean, in the gold of your skin, the gold in your hair, the flecks of gold in your green eyes. Look at you, bathed in gold."</p>
<p>The sunlight was streaming in now, lighting up the bed, and all Dean could see was Castiel's tanned skin as the angel worked him over, kissing him everywhere. Even weird places, like the backs of his ankles, the dip of his knee, and when he was finished with the front he made Dean turn over so he could press worshipful kisses to his back.</p>
<p>"Thank you for sharing this beautiful gift with me, my love," Castiel murmured against Dean's fevered skin. Dean moaned and rutted shamelessly into the mattress. "Yes, just like that. You're so beautiful like this, Dean. So perfect, so lost to sensation. I love seeing you this way. I am honored."</p>
<p>Dean wondered when they would get to the main event, but Castiel seemed content to just lay kisses on him everywhere, to run his hands across his back and knead at his ass, to card his fingers through Dean's hair, as if he'd been waiting for years to get his hands on Dean and was going through an entire catalogue of what he had hoped to do if he ever found himself in the situation.</p>
<p>As if he'd wanted Dean for a long, long time.</p>
<p>Maybe he had.</p>
<p>Not that Dean would admit it, even at gunpoint, but he'd wanted Cas for a while.</p>
<p>But this was supposed to be easy - a one-time thing. Just another hookup with an angel. Dean didn't really care. He'd hook up with anybody, and Cas wasn't even his first celestial being.</p>
<p>This time it was different.</p>
<p>It was different in some new, huge, terrifying way that threatened to consume him, make him spontaneously combust, make him into a new and different man. It felt momentous and mundane all at once, and all at once it was too much, <em>so </em>much - </p>
<p>"I love you, Dean Winchester," said Castiel, and Dean came with a loud cry, so hard he could see stars.</p>
<p>"Oh," Castiel was saying, over and over again, softly as he continued his slow, torturous exploration of Dean's body, "Oh, Dean. That was <em>beautiful. </em>Oh, my love."</p>
<p>Then he lifted Dean to his knees, pressed him down - and Dean would have done anything asked of him, he was like jelly - and Castiel's tongue swept across his hole.</p>
<p>"<em>Oh!"</em> Dean shouted, his cock giving a painful twitch even though he had just come.</p>
<p>"Shh, beloved," murmured Castiel, leaning his cheek against Dean's ass. "Let me take care of you."</p>
<p>And Castiel started to eat him out, soft and slow.</p>
<p>Dean just whined and panted his way through it, until his cock was hard again and dripping onto the bed beneath him.</p>
<p>He wondered if Castiel would draw this out forever. Angels didn't experience time the way humans did, and he felt ridiculously desperate for Castiel to fuck him.</p>
<p>"Need you, Cas," he bit out. "Please."</p>
<p>Castiel stopped his ministrations for a moment and smoothed his hands over Dean's ass.</p>
<p>"Are you sure?" he asked.</p>
<p>"Yes," said Dean.</p>
<p>"I am so honored," said Castiel. "Turn over, please."</p>
<p>Dean wasn't sure if he was ready to look at Castiel, but he did as requested, moving over to the center of the bed.</p>
<p>And if he had felt overwhelmed before, now he did not know what to do, gazing up at Castiel bathed in sunlight. He was the most exquisitely beautiful thing that Dean had ever laid eyes on.</p>
<p>Dean just watched as Castiel stared down at him, saying nothing. Dean already felt fucked out, completely pliable, but Castiel still made sure he was properly stretched before placing his fat cock against Dean's hole.</p>
<p>"I am incredibly fortunate," gasped Castiel, as he began to push inside Dean, "This is wonderful, Dean."</p>
<p>The strain in his voice made Dean thrill with pride. He had seemed so calm and collected before, but he could hear that line of desire in Castiel's voice, the way it shook a little, and Dean knew he had been acting more in control than he really felt.</p>
<p>"Don't hold back," mumbled Dean. "Let go, Cas. I want to feel you."</p>
<p>If he had expected this request to elicit some kind of rough fucking, Dean was very mistaken.</p>
<p>"I adore you," Castiel breathed, as he moved inside Dean. "You are everything to me, do you understand? <em>Everything. </em>I would move worlds for you. I love you to distraction, so much I cannot fathom it. Perfect, beautiful - <em>my love - beloved - </em>"</p>
<p>The tears were coming freely now and Dean couldn't find it in himself to be ashamed anymore or embarrassed. Instead, he gave himself over to the angel, staring up into his beautiful blue eyes, caressing his skin, uncaring that this was Castiel seeing him at his most vulnerable.</p>
<p>Castiel always caught him when he fell.</p>
<p>"Oh," sighed Castiel then, "oh, Dean - oh, I love you - always - I will never leave your side."</p>
<p>Dean gasped and came, startling himself a little, but it was all pure and perfect and he relaxed into the sensation like the warm sea breeze off the water.</p>
<p>Castiel never sped up, never started fucking him hard, just continued his relentless, slow pace as he praised Dean and covered him with gentle touches.</p>
<p>This was the first time in Dean's life he realized what <em>making love </em>meant, and suddenly his heart was too full, he was too happy, too everything, too much -</p>
<p>and he wrapped his legs around Castiel, pulling him closer still, clutched at him and sobbed -</p>
<p>"I love you, too. I love you, Castiel. I love you so much."</p>
<p>Castiel went very, very still. </p>
<p>His mouth dropped open, and blue grace flashed through his eyes as he pressed himself firmly inside, further than before. </p>
<p>Dean watched his face. It was like lightning behind stormclouds, but not like a threat - like the reassuring safety of being indoors with a hot drink on a rainy day, looking through a window at the sky.</p>
<p>And then Castiel came, soft and quiet, on a sweet little whine that made Dean tighten his embrace, as if there was nothing else in the world, maybe the universe, apart from the two of them on that bed in the hotel by the ocean.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Afterwards, Castiel held him, and ran his fingers through Dean's hair.</p>
<p>For the first time since he could remember, Dean felt no anxiety, no rush of fear, no need to be somewhere or do something or to drink liquor to forget.</p>
<p>It was just him, and Castiel, and the ocean.</p>
<p>His head was pillowed on Castiel's right shoulder, and the part of him, the too-macho part that actually had the opposite effect intended a lot of the time, the part that would have scoffed at Castiel's gentle lovemaking and even gentler treatment -</p>
<p>was just <em>gone. </em></p>
<p>Dean remembered it, but it seemed far away and unimportant; something he'd discarded a long time ago that was no longer useful to him.</p>
<p>For the first time in a long time, Dean felt at peace.</p>
<p>He sighed and snuggled closer to Castiel. </p>
<p>Cas wouldn't judge him. Didn't think he was less of a man. Didn't think him less of a hero for desiring a gentle touch, and for openly weeping while an angel made love to him.</p>
<p>Here, Dean didn't have to be afraid.</p>
<p>"Love you, Cas," he said, just to try it out on his tongue after keeping it behind his teeth for so many years.</p>
<p>"I love you too, Dean," said Castiel, easy as that.</p>
<p>Huh. Maybe it wasn't so hard to say after all.</p>
<p>Then, inevitably -</p>
<p>because he knew Cas would bring it up again, and now he wasn't sure why he hadn't -</p>
<p>"Sam's missing, Cas," Dean said. "I lost him."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Windows</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"How do you mean?" Castiel asked gently. The sound of the ocean outside was gentle, too. Dean listened to the waves for a while before he answered. </p>
<p>He did not want to break the calm and peace of the place, or get dragged back to the pain of reality.</p>
<p>"Was just a stupid fuckin' salt-n-burn, Cas," Dean whispered. "Done 'em a million times, y'know? An' - an' - when I torched the bones, Sammy vanished too. He was standing <em>right next to me.</em>"</p>
<p>He breathed against the tears that threatened to fall.</p>
<p>"Never seen anything like it," said Dean. "Looked through every lore book we had, called and asked everybody I could think of, drove from state to state aimlessly trying to find some clue about what happened to him."</p>
<p>"Shh," said Castiel, holding Dean tighter. "It's not your fault, Dean. You couldn't have known."</p>
<p>"But he's my <em>brother, </em>Cas, it's my job to take care of him," said Dean. "An' I failed. Like I always do."</p>
<p>"Now you know that isn't true," said Castiel. </p>
<p>"What happened to him, Cas? Do you know?" asked Dean.</p>
<p>"I can make inquiries."</p>
<p>Suddenly, Dean was alone in the bed. He looked around himself in a panic.</p>
<p>"Cas?"</p>
<p>He reappeared while Dean was pouring himself coffee from the room's coffee maker, still completely naked.</p>
<p>"It's true," said Cas. "I can't find signs of him anywhere."</p>
<p>"You went looking dressed like <em>that?</em>" asked Dean.</p>
<p>Castiel looked down at himself, also still fully naked.</p>
<p>"Hm," he hummed. "I forget, at times, these strange contrivances you humans have. Still, I don't think any humans saw me. I went to speak to the other angels, stopped in Hell for a moment. And Sam is not in Purgatory either."</p>
<p>Dean sighed and sat down. He took a sip of coffee.</p>
<p>"So what do we do now?" he asked. "I can't just sit around, Cas. It's getting under my skin and making me crazy."</p>
<p>"What exactly do you remember about that night?"</p>
<p>"Well, let's see. We'd gone into Omaha a few hours before, then found the ghost in a graveyard and torched it. Pretty run-of-the-mill stuff if you ask me."</p>
<p>"Was there anything strange? Anything at all."</p>
<p>"Man, you sound like me and Sam interrogating someone."</p>
<p>"There's a reason for that."</p>
<p>"Uh," said Dean, thinking about it as he put his lips to the mug again, "now that you mention it, Sam had his clothes on backwards."</p>
<p>Castiel furrowed his brow.</p>
<p>"What?" he asked. "And you didn't mention it?"</p>
<p>"Of course I did," said Dean. "Teased the shit out of him for it, too - "</p>
<p>"Dean," said Castiel. "That was not your brother."</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>"A fetch," Dean repeated.</p>
<p>"A ghost of the living. And it's likely there is one of each of us," said Castiel gravely.</p>
<p>"How do you figure?"</p>
<p>"These things tend to come in threes," said Cas. "Besides, if something was targeting Sam, then targeting all of us makes sense. The Germans call it a <em>doppelganger.</em>"</p>
<p>"Great," said Dean. Then he gave Cas a strange look. "How do I know that <em>you're </em>the real Castiel? How do you know that <em>I'm </em>the real Dean?"</p>
<p>"Your soul," said Castiel automatically. "You have the most exquisitely beautiful soul I have ever seen."</p>
<p>Dean didn't know what to say to that, so he chose bluster.</p>
<p>"Gonna make a guy blush over here," said Dean.</p>
<p>"I've already done that, and I plan to do it again."</p>
<p>"Whoa, Cas," said Dean. "Confident much?"</p>
<p>Castiel's blue eyes seemed to bore a hole in him.</p>
<p>"I have reason to be," he said, in a firm and steady voice that made Dean shiver.</p>
<p>"Then I still gotta ask, fetch or not: where is Sam?" asked Dean.</p>
<p>"I suppose it's pointless to ask when the last time you saw your real brother might have been," mused Castiel. </p>
<p>Dean shrugged, opening his arms wide.</p>
<p>"How would I know?" he asked. "I should know, shouldn't I?"</p>
<p>"Dean, it's useless to beat yourself up over it," said Castiel. "Fetches and doppelgangers fool everyone."</p>
<p>"Everyone but you," Dean pointed out. "Because you can see souls, apparently."</p>
<p>Castiel nodded.</p>
<p>"But if I were unable to, I would not be the wiser," said Castiel. </p>
<p>Then he walked up to Dean and set his hand against the old handprint scar at Dean's shoulder.</p>
<p>"<em>Ah! Fuck!</em>" Dean shouted, almost dropping his coffee. </p>
<p>He was hard already, and leaking; it had felt like the best foreplay of his life in a split second.</p>
<p>"That's how you will know it's me," Castiel murmured, staring down at Dean. "I also brought you a gift."</p>
<p>He handed Dean what looked like lingerie, with a G-string and a large, diaphonous bow.</p>
<p>"Uh, Cas, I - this is for women, buddy," Dean laughed, but it sounded more like a pant as he stared at the "gift" in his hands.</p>
<p>Castiel cupped Dean's chin in his hand and tipped it up, looking him directly in the eyes.</p>
<p>"Don't lie to me, Dean," he said gently. "I put this body back together. I know what you like, what you've kept hidden - from me, from the world, from yourself."</p>
<p>Dean stared down at the outfit. He rubbed the lace between his fingers.</p>
<p>"Put it on," Castiel encouraged him. "We have a few hours before we must rejoin the world and continue the search. Will you do this for me, Dean?"</p>
<p>Blushing fiercely, Dean nodded.</p>
<p>Castiel helped him to step into the panties, and to pull the slim straps over his shoulders.</p>
<p>The tails of the bow laid prettily against Dean's ass, which he could see in the full-length mirror. He was framed by the blue of the ocean and could admit, at least to himself, that he looked -</p>
<p>"Beautiful," sighed Castiel, circling him. The angel had never gotten dressed again, and as he observed Dean in the lingerie, the lace fitting snugly around his chest, the panties and the soft bow accentuating his ass, Dean watched in silence as Castiel's cock slowly grew harder.</p>
<p>"Hands behind your back, my love," the angel murmured.</p>
<p>Dean did as he was told, feeling strangely exposed.</p>
<p>"You are a delight to behold," said Castiel. "Never hide this from me, beloved."</p>
<p>Dean was hard now, his cock tenting the front of the panties obscenely; it barely fit, and he needed Castiel like yesterday.</p>
<p>"Need you," he forced out of his mouth. "Please, Cas."</p>
<p>"How can I deny you when you ask so nicely?" asked Castiel.</p>
<p>The angel reached out and smoothed his hands down Dean's sides. Dean shuddered at the contact, and his cock gave a little spurt of precome. </p>
<p>"Fuck," he swore again, the intensity getting to him.</p>
<p>And then Castiel slid the string of the panties to the side, placing his cock against Dean's hole.</p>
<p>"Still so ready for me," murmured Castiel, as he began to push inside. "As if you were made to take me."</p>
<p>Dean whined as Castiel seated his cock inside, wrapping his arms around Dean.</p>
<p>"Just think," whispered Castiel, as he began to move. "Anyone could look up here and see you, see how pretty you look in your panties. Would you like that, Dean?"</p>
<p>Dean just whined again, throwing his head back on Castiel's shoulder.</p>
<p>"Mmm, perhaps you would," Castiel commented, "you love to share yourself, and  your love, with so many. But I don't want to share, Dean. I want all of you, from now on. I want to know that you're mine."</p>
<p>Dean knew he should be terrified. Nothing like the idea of commitment to make him run scared, to make him fear for the lives of his loved ones.</p>
<p>But Castiel was different. Castiel wouldn't break. Castiel could fight by his side.</p>
<p>Castiel was forever and eternal, strong as the sea.</p>
<p>"Yours," Dean whispered, and that set Castiel off as if he had lit a fuse.</p>
<p>The angel started fucking into him with total desperation, as if something had snapped in him.</p>
<p>"<em>Mine,</em>" snarled Castiel softly, biting down onto Dean's shoulder. "<em>Mine own.</em>"</p>
<p>And he was holding Dean by the hips now, slamming into him and yelling garbled nonsense, as Dean just clung to him and held on for the ride.</p>
<p>Then Dean realized the garbled nonsense was Enochian, and he absolutely melted back against the angel.</p>
<p>"I belong to you, Castiel," he said, emphasizing the angel's full name, "Fully and wholly, I give myself over to you."</p>
<p>Dean wasn't exactly sure what kind of response he hoped to elicit, just to drive Cas crazy, but it seemed to be the right thing to say.</p>
<p>Because blue light streamed from Castiel's eyes, and he pulled Dean flush with his body, slapping a hand over Dean's eyes, and bellowed something in Enochian directly in Dean's ear as the angel went supernova.</p>
<p>The pleasure was hard, and fast, and fierce, striking through every nerve in Dean's body like an electric shock that just went on and on. Dean was high, he could feel himself coming, his cock twitching in pain-pleasure as he spurted across the floor, but this simple orgasm seemed the equivalent in pleasure to a handshake compared to whatever was happening to him now. He could feel Castiel coming inside him as well, his cock buried in his ass, pumping come deep inside him. All of this, he was aware of as if from a great distance, while his entire being felt completely overpowered and riding a high unlike anything he had ever known.</p>
<p>There was a flash of gold and blue that seemed to go on forever, the colors intertwining as the impossible pleasure reached new and perfect heights.</p>
<p>Dean was certain that he was dead, or about to be. No human could sustain such a feeling for long.</p>
<p>Eventually, there was the sensation of a wash of lesser pleasure, still incredible but lessening, like the tide going out. Then less again, and less again, until Dean had returned to his body and stood panting there. If Castiel hadn't been holding onto him so tightly he would have collapsed onto the floor and possibly passed out. He wasn't sure that he hadn't passed out in the first place.</p>
<p>Castiel was still buried inside him. The angel dropped his hand from Dean's eyes, but to Dean's shock, was still fucking in and out of him, much slower now, lazy and sure, as if he were staking a claim.</p>
<p>Dean tried to speak, but found his voice sore and uncooperative. He had the distinct impression that he had been screaming at the top of his lungs.</p>
<p>"Cas?" he finally croaked.</p>
<p>"Mmm," Castiel hummed against his skin, still moving.</p>
<p>"Cas, what was that?" Dean asked.</p>
<p>Castiel's arms just tightened around him.</p>
<p>"Mmm," Castiel said again, as if he had forgotten how to speak. Maybe he had.</p>
<p>So Dean stood there and let him get whatever it was out of his system, as Castiel seemed to be on some strange angel-level where Dean could not communicate with him. </p>
<p>He thought of the handprint. He thought of what he'd told Castiel.</p>
<p>Claimed and bound. </p>
<p>The idea made him shudder again, which made Cas do the humming noise and press into him even further.</p>
<p>They passed ten minutes in this way, until Castiel finally dropped his arms.</p>
<p>Dean took the opening and moved away from Castiel, unseating him.</p>
<p>He turned around to see the most beatific look in the angel's eyes, as if he were still far off somewhere.</p>
<p>"Gimme a sec," said Dean. "Just gonna - be right back."</p>
<p>Dean went into the bathroom and stripped, then did his best to clean up with all that entailed.</p>
<p>He reluctantly found his clothes on the floor and put them back on, to find Castiel sitting dazed on the bed.</p>
<p>"You back in the land of the living, bud?" asked Dean.</p>
<p>Castiel gazed up at Dean with a strange, adoring expression he'd never seen before.</p>
<p>"Dean, I - " Castiel began, and he faltered.</p>
<p>There was a knock at the door.</p>
<p>"Hold that thought," said Dean. "And put on some clothes, hippie."</p>
<p>He smiled. Castiel smiled back.</p>
<p>Dean opened the door.</p>
<p>Standing there were Dean and Castiel.</p>
<p>They looked pretty angry.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Alone</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"What the hell?" both Deans growled at each other simultaneously.</p>
<p>"This must be some kind of black magic," said the new Castiel.</p>
<p>Dean backed away from the door, further into the room.</p>
<p>He remembered Sam wearing his clothes inside out and wondered.</p>
<p>"Cas, turn your sleeve inside out!" he said.</p>
<p>"What?" both Castiels said at the same time.</p>
<p>Dean pulled at his sleeve so that it was inside out on his arm.</p>
<p>"There!" he said triumphantly.</p>
<p>Suddenly, all three of them vanished.</p>
<p>"Shit!" he yelled.</p>
<p>He looked around himself, terror building at the base of his spine and in his heart.</p>
<p>He was alone again.</p>
<p>Entirely.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>After a few desperate prayers and no result, calls to Sam's phone with no answer, and pacing across the room wondering what it all meant, Dean decided to do what he always did when he was having an existential crisis.</p>
<p>He checked out of the hotel, climbed into Baby, and went for a drive.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Dean wasn't a researcher.</p>
<p>Not like Sam, anyway.</p>
<p>But he did have knowledge built up over years of <em>doing, </em>almost an apprenticeship as opposed to being a total nerd like Sam. Driving helped to clear his head and organize his thoughts.</p>
<p>He considered what Castiel had said about fetches and doppelgangers.</p>
<p>If that had been the real Castiel, anyway.</p>
<p>He clenched his jaw a little at that, a blush staining his cheeks at the thought of sharing something so intimate -</p>
<p>but no, it <em>had </em>to be the real Cas. That handprint would not burn without him.</p>
<p>Dean knew, because he had taken himself in hand before while thinking of the angel, and pressed his palm to the handprint. The first time, it had been sentimental; a tenuous connection to Castiel. But when he'd touched it, thinking of the angel, he'd <em>felt </em>the same sudden need course through him. Not as strongly as when Castiel had touched him, but strongly enough that he had finished that way, awkwardly keeping one hand pressed against the handprint while he furiously jacked himself until he came on a loud cry.</p>
<p>He wondered, not for the first time, if Castiel had felt it somewhere, off in the distance, hunching over while mid-conversation and needing to excuse himself to go somewhere and take care of himself.</p>
<p>Dean sighed, wresting his thoughts away from that topic. He didn't need any further distractions and thinking of the angel that way would only lead to him needing to pull over and fuck into his fist. It had happened enough times on enough lonely roads.</p>
<p>He wondered if Castiel knew. He wondered if Castiel had always known.</p>
<p>His approach had been bold. Confident. As if he knew Dean was secretly begging for it, begging for Castiel to finally cross that line because Dean was chicken.</p>
<p>All very good questions he planned to ask, once he got his brother and his angel back.</p>
<p>The highway slipped past him, the white lines on the road disappearing beneath the car in a familiar old rhythm. He was just past Florida state lines when he decided to stop for the night.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>In the old motel room, decorated in a seashell motif, Dean's back arched up from the bed as he came in spurts across his stomach. Now that he had real memories to pull from, they were much better than the fantasies he'd managed to concoct over time.</p>
<p>As he went into the bathroom and used the motel soaps to clean up, he stared at himself in the bathroom mirror. More lines now. His cheeks were sallow and sunken. He could see the outline of his skull now. </p>
<p>He was aging, and he was worried: not beautifully.</p>
<p>He was well-aware that he was an attractive man. In his youth, maybe pretty or beautiful.</p>
<p>
  <em>Like Cas said.</em>
</p>
<p>Well, he damn sure wasn't beautiful now. </p>
<p>His eyes looked ghost-haunted, his jaw a hard line. As if all he had ever known was war.</p>
<p>But there was a softening there, around the eyes and the mouth, from laughter -</p>
<p>and from something like love. </p>
<p>Whatever he and Castiel had shared yesterday, for the first time -</p>
<p>whatever it was, he felt it was changing him, and for the better.</p>
<p>But he didn't really recognize the face staring back at him from the mirror.</p>
<p>It was beginning to look like an old man.</p>
<p>In his mind's eye, he was still the wink-and-a-smile, charming and incorrigible handsome young upstart, a twenty-six-year-old man who had charmed his way into bed after bed across the lower 48.</p>
<p>He wondered if a day would come when he did not recognize the old man staring back at him at all.</p>
<p>And he faced it now, head-on, a fear that crawled up into his soul and made a nest there, a fear worse than aging or death:</p>
<p>Dean, being alone.</p>
<p>Oh, certainly, he had lived much of his life living out of his big black car, out of motels scattered aross the country. But all that was changing now. People romanticized the road, and that had started to pull even the worst of the roadside motels out of their price range, places closing down all over the country. Like it or not, he was a part of an American past, one that was slowly closing in around him and wasn't letting go.</p>
<p>Dean had always known that the Winchesters would be etched across American history, and that nobody would ever know all the good they had done in the world. Winchester gospels or not. He had made his peace with that a long time ago.</p>
<p>But the idea of doing this, <em>any </em>of this, <em>alone</em> -</p>
<p>well. He talked tough. He talked a good game. But Sammy had been right, all those years ago -</p>
<p>Dean didn't want to be alone.</p>
<p>He'd do anything to avoid it, including some truly sketchy stuff he'd pulled on Sam.</p>
<p>Cas, though -</p>
<p>Cas wanted to be there.</p>
<p>In his most private thoughts, Dean had hoped that Cas loved him. Was<em> in love </em>with him. </p>
<p>And he knew what Cas had said, during sex - but that was during sex.</p>
<p>Dean was no stranger to the concept that people will say just about anything.</p>
<p>He brushed his teeth.</p>
<p>Then he stopped and stared at himself in the mirror again, a memory surfacing with regards to fetches and doppelgangers.</p>
<p>They were also death omens.</p>
<p>"Fuck," said Dean to the empty room, through his toothbrush.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Savannah</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He'd found himself in Savannah, next. He'd always privately enjoyed looking at the balconies there. It was a beautiful town and so many places in the States looked as if they had been assembled from an Ikea box that towns like Savannah were a breath of fresh air.</p><p>The summer in Savannah had a heavy, muggy heat. Not so the autumn, which had fresh breezes and the turn of the seasons. Dean loved watching the leaves turn in the fall, making the entire world golden.</p><p>Dean walked the streets of Savannah, enjoying the beautiful ancient oak trees that arched overhead. There was something magical about the city that he didn't often find on his own travels. Then again, there had always been a case. He and Sam usually didn't have the time to just take things in and appreciate the variety of the nation they had spent their entire lives protecting.</p><p>Along one of the boulevards, he saw a coffee shop. He went inside, out of the slight chill, and walked up to the counter to order.</p><p>The barista turned around.</p><p>"Hi, what can I get for you?" he rumbled.</p><p>Dean stared.</p><p>"Cas?" he asked blankly.</p><p>Cas, or the man behind the counter, was disheveled. He wore dark eyeliner and mascara that accentuated his too-blue eyes. He was also much younger and slimmer, his hair a bedhead mess, and peered up at Dean with an innocence and plush lips that would look like sin around his cock.</p><p><em>Damn, </em>thought Dean. <em>Cas is <b>cute.</b></em></p><p>He had never had that thought before. Sexy, hot, powerful, sure. But <em>cute</em>?</p><p>"Sir?" asked the Cas behind the counter. "How'd you know my name?"</p><p>"Cut the crap, Cas," growled Dean. "I know that you know me."</p><p>"I - I don't," he stuttered. "'M sorry. Can I get you something?"</p><p>Dean stared at him. </p><p>Then he grinned.</p><p>***</p><p>"Oh!" said this new, younger Cas, as Dean held him up against the back of the supply closet door, fucking into him hard enough to make the shelves rattle. "Oh, <em>Dean - </em>"</p><p>"Yeah, that's it," Dean growled into his shoulder. "Say my name."</p><p>Cas was still mostly clothed, his baggy sweater bunching on his arms, his jeans pulled down just far enough to expose his ass. Dean couldn't help himself, the way Cas looked - so fucking innocent and sweet, like he'd never been touched - lit a fire in him that Dean never knew was there to be lit. He'd never cared much for virgins, he'd always preferred experienced lovers -</p><p>but this was <em>Cas, </em>and like with everything, Cas was different.</p><p>"Feel so good," Dean muttered. "You're so fucking tight. Have you ever done this before?"</p><p>"N - no," whimpered Cas. "Well, um - by - by myself."</p><p>Dean groaned, and leaned his forehead againts Cas's shoulder, trying to get himself under control with the images that flooded his brain. Cas, discovering himself for the first time, Cas, his pretty mouth dropped on an O as he pushed a finger inside, curious - Cas, coming all over his stomach on a wail -</p><p>"Fuck, Cas," said Dean, "love thinking of you like that, opening yourself up for the first time, fucking yourself on your fingers just 'cause it felt <em>so good, </em>is that what you did, baby?"</p><p>"Y - yeah," Cas breathed, as Dean thrust into him again, Cas's cock trapped between them and leaking precome profusely. </p><p>"Bet it felt good, didn't it?" asked Dean, staring up at the smeared eyeliner surrounding Castiel's eyes, shining blue, and his kiss-bitten lips. </p><p>"Not as good as you feel," Cas replied, and that was <em>it.</em></p><p>Dean fucked into him so hard that Castiel was crying out with every thrust, and he stared into Cas's eyes as the angel gasped and came, suddenly, a blush high on his cheeks, and it was the blush that somehow got to Dean, the idea that <em>he </em>had done that, <em>he </em>had made it happen - </p><p>"<em>Fuck! </em><em><b>Fuck! Cas!</b></em>" he all but bellowed as he slammed inside him hard enough he was sure the door would break. </p><p>"<em><b>Ungh!</b></em>" he shouted as he came, burying himself deep inside Cas, his cock pulsing with an intensity that just bordered pain.</p><p>He was breathing hard, between his teeth. He tasted iron.</p><p>He realized that he had come so hard he had bitten his tongue.</p><p>"Fuck, Cas," he breathed against Castiel's shoulder. </p><p>He let the angel down, where Cas rearranged his clothing and pulled up his jeans.</p><p>"Now are you gonna tell me what the hell's going on here, Cas?" Dean asked, as he caught his breath.</p><p>Castiel stared at him.</p><p>"Dean, I meant it when I said I'd never seen you before today," he said. "So whoever you think I am - I'm not."</p><p>Dean stared back.</p><p>"Then," he said, looking at the door where a suspicious crack had begun to form, "then - why'd you do that?"</p><p>"I - I don't know," said Castiel, and blushed again, making Dean helpless but to kiss him and mess up his hair some more. </p><p>"Those fucking lips are addictive," Dean growled against his mouth. "Fuck. I can't believe I'm going to do this, but."</p><p>"What? What are you going to do?" asked Cas, kissed breathless.</p><p>Dean gave him a sorrowful look.</p><p>He turned his sleeve inside out.</p><p>Castiel vanished.</p><p>Dean dropped his forehead to the supply closet door with a broken sob.</p><p>"What the fuck is going on around here?" he demanded of the emptiness.</p><p>***</p><p>After his confusing experience at the coffeeshop in Savannah, Dean hit the road again. He didn't feel comfortable, after everything.</p><p>What <em>was </em>it about Castiel, in every and any form, that drove him absolutely wild? Powerful angel, stammering virgin, it didn't really seem to matter.</p><p>It was just <em>Cas, Cas, Cas, </em>all the time these days.</p><p>Dean thought about the fact that he was getting older, as Baby ate up the highway miles. Maybe he was changing. Maybe he wanted to settle down.</p><p>Maybe he just wanted company that wouldn't <em>leave </em>- like Sam said, <em>someone who understood the life.</em></p><p>And that was Cas, through and through.</p><p>There was one thing Dean knew for certain -</p><p>apart from Bert and Ernie being gay, and that he wouldn't have let Cas die a virgin that night, and oh, what if Castiel had misinterpreted his words -</p><p>but the other thing he knew was that he didn't want to be alone anymore. This was teaching him the reality of his desires - no, his <em>needs - </em>more than anything else ever had. Whatever magic had ahold of him now would pay dearly for it, of course - but Dean could not deny it was teaching him some important lessons too.</p><p>One of which was that he needed Castiel in his life, and not in a <em>brothers </em>kind of way.</p><p>He already had one brother, and that was enough for him.</p><p>Dean pulled into a gas station to refuel, and as he got out of the car, he stopped in his tracks.</p><p>There was a ridiculously tall man standing next to some douchebag-mobile, wearing a much nicer suit than they normally used for their FBI getups, talking animatedly into a fancy-looking cellphone.</p><p>Dean just stared at him,  until he finally found his voice.</p><p>"Sam?"</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Variations on a Theme</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Dean!" Sam said, but there was something fake-cheerful about Sam's voice, something unreal. </p>
<p>His brother walked over and embraced him, sure, but it felt tense and strange, like bad playacting.</p>
<p>"So, uh, what brings you to this neck of the woods?" asked Sam, in a too-loud singsong.</p>
<p>Dean narrowed his eyes.</p>
<p>"Just passin' through," said Dean.</p>
<p>"Yeah, you do that," said Sam, and Dean recognized the anger beneath his voice immediately. "Don't you think Mom and Dad are tired of you wandering all over the country?"</p>
<p>"Mom and Dad?" Dean parroted. "Sam, they're dead."</p>
<p>"Oh, I'm sure you'd like that, wouldn't you?" Sam snapped. "How do you think Mom feels, with you living on the road like this? She has <em>nightmares, </em>Dean, we all do. When are you going to come home, get a real job, live a real life?"</p>
<p>"Sam, we both live on the road, what are you - " Dean argued.</p>
<p>The penny dropped. He wasn't sure why it had taken such a long time, but then, he'd gotten used to thinking the worst of himself.</p>
<p>"I miss you, Sammy," said Dean, and he turned his sleeve inside out.</p>
<p>Sam and his flashy car both vanished from the parking lot.</p>
<p>Dean sighed deeply and stood next to his car, pressing his forehead against the cool metal where Baby's roof met the top of the door.</p>
<p>"<em>What is going on,</em>" he mumbled. "Will somebody please tell me what the fuck is going on."</p>
<p>"Sure thing, sport!"</p>
<p>If Sam's voice had been too loud, this voice was too bright.</p>
<p>It was also one he recognized immediately.</p>
<p>He looked up and saw a man dressed in an old fuel-pump-jockey's uniform.</p>
<p>"Gabriel," groaned Dean.</p>
<p>Gabriel's finger guns did not improve matters.</p>
<p>"I always did like you, Dean," he said. "Always thought you were the smart one."</p>
<p>"So this is your world."</p>
<p>Gabriel shrugged, with a little smile.</p>
<p>"Let's just say I always wanted to be in porn," he said.</p>
<p>Dean stared at him.</p>
<p>"What the hell does that mean?"</p>
<p>"Fanfiction, my boy," said Gabriel. "Your very own world. Call it my gift to you."</p>
<p>Dean could actually feel himself going pale.</p>
<p>"Bull," he said. "You never do anything without some kind of price, or lesson."</p>
<p>Gabriel nodded.</p>
<p>"You got me there," he agreed. "But while you're figuring it out, in the meantime - why not explore this garden of delights? One entire America, where you and Cas hook up over and over again in every possible configuration! Canon, AU, you name it, you got it!"</p>
<p>"And the thing with the fetches?"</p>
<p>"Oh, that's real, too. What's any kind of world for you that doesn't have a mystery to solve?"</p>
<p>Dean shook his head.</p>
<p>"You send me back right now, you - "</p>
<p>"Sorry, Deano, no can do," said Gabriel. "Guess you'll just have to wait it out. Or, y'know. Enjoy Castiel's garden of delights, in every way possible."</p>
<p>Gabriel snapped his fingers, and Dean was alone at the gas station.</p>
<p>"Son of a <em>bitch!</em>" he bellowed, but there was nobody around to hear him.</p>
<p>After a while, he put gas in Baby's tank, and bought some Twizzlers.</p>
<p>Then he hit the road, because that was all he knew how to do when he had no answers.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Curiosity got the better of Dean.</p>
<p>So sue him, he was only human.</p>
<p>And now that he knew it was safe - well. Safe enough, with just that horndog Gabriel aware of what he was doing - Dean turned his road trip into something of his greatest hits.</p>
<p>Except instead of sleeping with women all across the country, he kept finding different versions of Castiel.</p>
<p>At first, by accident. Then, on purpose. It turned into a game of sorts, trying to figure out where Castiel would pop up in the next town, in the next story. Sometimes he'd just wait around to see when Castiel would enter stage right.</p>
<p>In New York City, Castiel was a mafia boss he let fuck him against the glass windows of his 24th-floor office.</p>
<p>In Texas, he was a cattle rancher down on his luck, and Dean became his saving grace. That one was more like a traditional romance.</p>
<p>In California, Cas was some kind of free-love hippie. Dean was less into that one. It gave him flashbacks.</p>
<p>In Oregon, he was some kind of sea-creature, and well. Dean always did have a fondness for tentacles.</p>
<p>There was even one strangely memorable time when Cas had all different kind of equipment, called himself an alpha - </p>
<p>and, well. Dean had never been one to say no to pleasure of any kind.</p>
<p>Hell, he just rolled with it.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>But of all these places and all these worlds, all these Castiels interacting with the same Dean, their desire for each other, the way they'd fight for one another, could not be denied. It was so clear and so real Dean's heart ached with it.</p>
<p>And, inevitably, he started wondering about the real Cas. </p>
<p>The real thing. Maybe. Someday.</p>
<p>But as good as Gabriel was, he could not make the real Castiel fall in love or lust with him.</p>
<p>And so, guilty -</p>
<p>Dean decided he kind of liked it here, where the whole world boiled down to him and Castiel, fighting the good fight and falling in love. Fucking against every available surface because they couldn't help themselves, they had to have each other.</p>
<p>Dean had never felt so overwhelmingly wanted, so violently loved.</p>
<p>And like an addiction, he just kept feeding it. </p>
<p>After he'd had his fill of a certain Cas, he'd turn his sleeve inside out.</p>
<p>Because <em>his Cas -</em> the real Cas - saw them as brothers. Couldn't possibly know this thing Dean had nurtured and kept harbored in his heart of hearts all these years.</p>
<p>Dean had fallen so long ago he couldn't remember when.</p>
<p>He walked into yet another convenience store and saw with joy that Castiel was standing behind the register.</p>
<p>"Beef jerky and a pack of menthols," he said, grinning, and Castiel gave him that same dazed stare as before. Maybe they could finally do all those things Dean had dreamed of doing with Cas that night, the night of his ruined date, that time Dean felt worst about, and he wanted to fuck Cas and hold him and tell him that everything would be okay, that he loved him, he was cherished and wanted and desired, to worship his skin and lay kisses along every rib of the man who remade him -</p>
<p>"Dean. We have to go. Now."</p>
<p>That voice hit him like ice water down his back.</p>
<p>"Sam. Leave it."</p>
<p>Dean turned to look at his giant of a brother.</p>
<p>"I'm sorry, but I can't," said Sam.</p>
<p>Dean looked at Castiel, and then at his brother.</p>
<p>He turned his sleeve inside out.</p>
<p>Castiel vanished.</p>
<p>Sam stayed.</p>
<p>"I'm real, Dean," said Sam. "And I'm here to take you home."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Home</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Where's Cas?"</p>
<p>Sam stared at him.</p>
<p>"Cas sent me," said Sam. "C'mon, Dean, we don't have much time. Cas said he could only keep the doorway open for so long. I'm lucky I found you as fast as I did."</p>
<p>"Did Cas, uh, mention," said Dean, "what kind of world this is?"</p>
<p>
  <em>Do you know? Does <b>he </b>know?</em>
</p>
<p>"Just said it was one of Gabriel's tricks, like the television universe," said Sam. "You know Cas, he's not exactly talkative. Why, what kind of world is it?"</p>
<p>Dean thought of a million answers, none of which he wanted to tell Sam.</p>
<p><em>Paradise </em>was one of them.</p>
<p>"Uh, that's it," Dean said. "Crazy-ass Gabe, am I right?"</p>
<p>He clapped his brother on the shoulder.</p>
<p>"Thanks for saving me, little brother," said Dean. "Let's go."</p>
<p>Sam gave him a soppy look.</p>
<p>"You know I always will, Dean," he said.</p>
<p>"Yeah, yeah, enough with the Hallmark," Dean told him. "Time to get a move on, Cas is waiting."</p>
<p>Sam led him through the door.</p>
<p>And if Dean took one last, wistful look at the register, Sam was none the wiser.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>"Dean!"</p>
<p>Castiel threw his arms around Dean, who was having a very hard time not trying to take things to another level. Especially his dick, which had not gotten the message that fun time with Castiel was over. It had been trained over time to respond to any touch, no matter how slight, from the angel. All those years of Dean working on keeping a lid on his feelings around Cas were gone.</p>
<p>"Are you all right?" asked Castiel, moving away from Dean all too soon. "What did my brother do?"</p>
<p>Dean outlined the whole fetch/doppelganger idea, and the cross-country travel to find the two of them in reality. </p>
<p>He conveniently left out the parts where he found every Cas-fetch he could find and banged him against every available surface.</p>
<p>Or, well. Let <em>Cas </em>bang <em>him </em>against every available surface.</p>
<p>"Is something the matter, Dean?" asked Castiel. "Your temperature is elevated and your skin is flushed."</p>
<p>"Uh, just the - uh," Dean stammered, because he was having a hard time looking into those baby blues without a Pavlovian dick response, "must be the stress of chaning worlds."</p>
<p>"That kind of travel can be hard on the human body," said Castiel.</p>
<p><em>Ain't that the truth, </em>thought Dean.</p>
<p>"But the problem remains. Those fetches might be here, in the real world."</p>
<p>"Why would your brother be employing fetches?" asked Sam.</p>
<p>Castiel rolled his eyes toward the ceiling with a defeated look.</p>
<p>"With Gabriel, who knows?" he said.</p>
<p>"Somebody say my name?"</p>
<p>They turned around to see Gabriel standing on top of the stairs to the map room.</p>
<p>"Ta da!" he said.</p>
<p>He frowned down at them.</p>
<p>"What? No fanfare?"</p>
<p>He walked down the staircase toward the three of them.</p>
<p>"Excellent job finding Dean, by the way," said Gabriel, joining them. "Top notch."</p>
<p>"What the hell are you playing at, Gabriel?" Castiel demanded.</p>
<p>Gabriel looked between the two of them.</p>
<p>His face fell.</p>
<p>"What, <em>nothing</em>?" he asked. "Tch. Well. Don't say I never did anything for you, baby bro."</p>
<p>He snapped his fingers and disappeared.</p>
<p>"Damn it!" Sam swore. </p>
<p>Then he turned to Dean.</p>
<p>"You've been awfully quiet," said Sam. "You want to clue us in here?"</p>
<p>Dean shook his head.</p>
<p>"I don't know anything more than you do, Sammy," said Dean.</p>
<p>But he saw Castiel looking at him, and those strategist wheels beginning to turn.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Later, Dean was relaxing in his bedroom listening to music when there was a knock at the door.</p>
<p>"It's Castiel."</p>
<p>Dean rubbed his face and groaned silently. Just what he needed.</p>
<p>He was on edge, because he needed Castiel <em>so much</em> -</p>
<p>and now it was impossible, there was no way he could look at the angel in the eyes again.</p>
<p>"Come in," said Dean, because what else could he do?</p>
<p>And when Castiel opened the door, Dean fell in love all over again.</p>
<p>Even though he had just seen him, Dean was absolutely floored by Castiel. How handsome he was, the awesome, quiet strength of him, the swirl of that trenchcoat, the way he handled a blade. Those blue-blazing eyes beneath the heavy brow, the noble Roman nose, the softness of those wide pink lips, the natural blush high on his cheekbones, his tanned skin, his hands. There was nothing about Castiel that Dean didn't catalogue, and if Cas could <em>sense longing </em>then Dean must be ringing one hell of a bell.</p>
<p>"I thought perhaps you wished to speak with me privately," Castiel rumbled, sitting down on the edge of Dean's bed. "Without the influence of your brother."</p>
<p>"I, hey, buddy," said Dean, because he was an idiot who could only focus on one thing, and that was <em>Cas! Cas is sitting on <b>my bed! </b>Cas is really close to me! </em>and somehow it was different than all those fanfiction Castiels because <em>this </em>Cas was <em>his Cas</em>, and this Cas was <em>real.</em></p>
<p>It also meant that Dean's walls and defenses had come down, but they seemed not to be operational anymore, because they were clearly malfunctioning.</p>
<p>"Dean, is there something you wanted to tell me?"</p>
<p>Strategist out the window, just blunt honest questioning. Dean wasn't sure what was worse.</p>
<p>"I - what makes you say that?" asked Dean.</p>
<p>"Dean."</p>
<p>There was such a rough edge of command to the way Castiel said his name, so similar to the dominant Castiels in the fanfiction-land he found he liked best, that Dean suddenly buried his face in his hands.</p>
<p>Over a decade of longing, and Dean was about to lose his shit just because Cas said his name like that.</p>
<p>"Whatever it was, I won't judge you," said Castiel. "But I need to know. We can keep it from Sam if it will make you more comfortable. Those fetches of Gabriel's may still be out there."</p>
<p>Dean held his gaze for a moment, and then broke.</p>
<p>He outlined everything that had happened between them in that world, and how badly he had wanted to stay. He never lifted his eyes from the bed, preferring to tell his story to the blanket than witness the disappointment in Castiel's expression.</p>
<p>He could've sworn, a few times, that he'd heard a gasp from the angel's direction, but decided it must be wishful thinking.</p>
<p>"And then Sam was there, and," Dean sighed, "I couldn't - I wanted to - God, Cas, I wanted to apologize so badly, to - to - uh, <em>make love </em>- uh, fuck. Cas, I'm so sorry."</p>
<p>The dead silence that followed all this made Dean terrified.</p>
<p>"I, uh, I'll understand if you can't, if - you can't be - um, around me anymore," Dean said, and wow, where was all that confident bluster now? He had never hated himself so much before, and that was saying a lot.</p>
<p>There was a voice in his head calling him disgusting and weak. That voice sounded a lot like John Winchester.</p>
<p>Maybe his dad had been right about him, all those years ago.</p>
<p>Suddenly, there were lips on his own, dry and chapped and perfect.</p>
<p>"Whuh," Dean mumbled against them.</p>
<p>He lifted his eyes to see Castiel's staring into him, wide and blue, as if he had never been told that he was supposed to close his eyes when he kissed someone.</p>
<p>It was over so fast that Dean wasn't sure it had even happened. Castiel backed away respectfully.</p>
<p>Dean stared at him, lost for words.</p>
<p>Then a thought occurred to him, and he reached down.</p>
<p>He pulled his sleeve inside out.</p>
<p>Castiel just sat there, staring at him.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Endings and Beginnings</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Cas?" ventured Dean.</p>
<p>He heard his voice tremble, and hated it.</p>
<p>"Should you wish to have relations," said Castiel, "I would not be opposed."</p>
<p>Dean wanted to laugh, to smile, to bluster, to make fun of Castiel's weirdly robotic way of speaking. But somehow this -</p>
<p>it was perfect, and so very <em>Cas.</em></p>
<p>"I, uh," said Dean, rubbing the back of his neck and feeling his cheeks heat. "Me too."</p>
<p>"Then you must teach me, beloved," said Castiel, serene and clear as a mountain lake.</p>
<p>Dean stared at him, then leaned forward, eyebrows raised in a question.</p>
<p>Castiel reached out and cupped his face. So gentle, but Dean knew the corded power in those hands all too well.</p>
<p>"Tell me how you want me to touch you," Castiel clarified in a warm rumble, and the words were like electricity flowing through Dean.</p>
<p>"Shit, Cas," he breathed. "Shit."</p>
<p>The enormity of this, the sheer weight of the thing after waiting for so long, made Dean regret his words. He didn't want to make a beginning on a curse.</p>
<p>"Close the door, Cas," said Dean. "<em>Castiel.</em>"</p>
<p>Cas's eyes closed, hiding that brilliant blue for a second, as if hearing his full name really did it for him.</p>
<p>His gaze was fixed on Dean as he raised a hand. The door closed and locked by itself.</p>
<p>"Damn, it's hot when you do that," Dean said.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Out in the kitchen, Gabriel reappeared suddenly.</p>
<p>"Shit!" Sam yelled, and dropped the book he was holding.</p>
<p>"C'mon, Sammy! Celebrate with me!" Gabriel crowed.</p>
<p>"Cele- celebrate what?" Sam asked, immediately suspicious.</p>
<p>"Oh, y'know," said Gabriel, "Old Grumpypants and Idiot gettin' it on in there! I did it, Sam!"</p>
<p>"Wha - ew! Gross! That's my <em>brother!</em>" shouted Sam.</p>
<p>Then he paused.</p>
<p>"Which one is which?" Sam asked.</p>
<p>"Your pick," Gabriel replied. "You wanna form a conga line?"</p>
<p>"There are only two of us here!" </p>
<p>Gabriel waggled his eyebrows suggestively.</p>
<p>"Exactly."</p>
<p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Author's Note</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Man, this one was all over the map with mood and tone. Finished early due to real-world stresses.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Hope you're all doing well :)</p>
  </div></div>
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